First Night
by seomensnowlocke
Summary: Ron ponders his relationship with Hermione as he watches her sleep after their First Night together.


He thought it was really amazing how she looked right then; with the moonlight coming in through the window and striking her bare thigh, casting a ghostly hue over her alabaster skin. She seemed to almost shine where it touched her.

She would probably be upset if she knew that he was looking at her like this. She hated to be stared at. It made her nervous. Sometimes Ron stared at her just to see her grow self-conscious and fidgety.

He sat in a chair by the window and wondered how this night would change things between them. He didn't really care that it would, but he was mildly curious to see how she would act the next day.

That was the problem with Hermione. You could think that you knew her very well, but then she would do something very surprising. She would cry when you made up from a row that was no different than any of a hundred rows they had been through before. She would be studiously assertive and supremely bossy and confident when discussing an academic point, but act as shy as a kitten when she tried to say something personal. She could be the most fun person with whom to joke, and then an icicle of reproach when she thought he was being an idiot. Therefore, Ron had no idea what the events of this night would do to her behavior.

However, he knew what his own behavior would be. He would treat her like a queen for every day of her life. He would do every bit in his power to make her the happiest girl in the world. He would be jealous of her, but trusting. He would be passionate, but gentle. He would be whatever she needed at any given moment. If he couldn't be what she needed, he would get what she needed.

And sometimes, he would try to annoy her, just to see that flash in her eyes, and that defiant toss of her head.

He leaned back farther in his chair and watched her in the moonlight. The blanket rose and fell as she breathed and her hand twitched in response to some dream. He smiled. He felt luxurious warmth in his limbs and drowsiness akin to the satisfying feeling one gets after a hearty meal.

He chuckled softly as he listened to her steady sleeping breaths. He had always heard that the men were the ones who fell asleep right away. He was not going to sleep yet. He wanted to enjoy this for a while.

Men. Was he a man now? Is that what it meant to be a man, to have accomplished something like that…to have…done it? He didn't really feel any different. He had done something that every teenage boy and young man seeks to do.

As a case in point, there was his behavior with Lavender Brown last year. He had been keen to engage in such activity with Lavender during their initial wrestling matches, but she had repeatedly turned aside his ham-fisted attempts. Strangely enough, when he had begun to lose interest in Lavender, she had begun to seem much more interested in bringing him to her bed. The more distant and, truthfully, unwilling Ron became, the more Lavender tried to seduce him. She had seemed just plain desperate to sleep with him, which had been an enormous turn off and embarrassment.

Women are just plain odd.

Well, not all women are odd that way. Hermione wasn't that way. Tonight was the first time she had ever acted like that. Well, that wasn't true, because they'd had plenty of full-out snogging sessions since they had gotten together at Bill's wedding last summer. And needless to say they'd had a few passionate times that had almost approached this night's level of commitment.

What was different?

Maybe it was because Voldemort was gone. Maybe it was because they'd seen Harry conscious and alert for the first time in a month, thank God. Maybe it was because Ginny had gotten out of the hospital that day. Maybe it was because they weren't all living in mortal peril any longer. Maybe it was because they weren't cramped into small rooms with Harry in various parts of Europe any longer. Maybe it was because his birthday was last week. Maybe it was important to Hermione for him to be of age in the muggle world before they did anything. She was muggle-born after all.

Or maybe it was finally just time. Maybe she was just ready. Maybe he, despite all of his apparent eagerness in the last seven and half months, was finally ready.

Despite that eagerness, Ron had never pushed her. She meant too much for him to push her to do such things, and he had always been, in his opinion, a consummate gentleman.

Well, all right, there had been that one time in November. She had threatened to kick him so hard that he'd never be able to do anything if he didn't stop trying to take off her knickers. He had overreacted a bit at the time. He had learned a valuable lesson to never again use the word tease when addressing Hermione.

He had eaten cold shoulder for a week after that and it had taken him another fortnight to get her to again allow their snogging sessions get to any point close to where she could be accused of being a tease.

And there was the time in January when she had decided to give him a detailed lecture on the male anatomy. She had explained in a very clinical manner about how the lack of release would not be sufficient to permanently injure him. No matter how much he had said it "hurt" when she refused him.

Ron had been so mortified by that conversation that he hadn't even tried to kiss her for three days after. He had only relented when she had gotten upset and tearfully asked him if he wasn't interested in her anymore. Then of course he had called her a bloody mental case, because if she kept refusing him, why in the bloody hell did she care if he was trying to snog her. She had then called him an insensitive little prat and tried to stalk away. He had then grabbed her hand and told her she was nuts and of course he wanted her more every day, he was just embarrassed. Before he had known it they were in another heavy make-out session. Hermione had worn a look of intense relief.

Women were just bloody mental, but Ron had learned an important lesson about girls just then. In their feminine insanity, if a girl liked a boy, even if she wouldn't have sex with him, she still wanted him to keep being interested in having sex with her. Or to put it a different way: it wasn't that Hermione didn't want to make love, she just couldn't yet, and that was bloody well not a damn reason for him to lose interest.

As if he could!

On Valentine's Day, Ron felt that he had taught her a similar lesson about young men. Admittedly, Ron had again gotten just a bit out of his normally gentlemanly character, and reacted a bit badly when Hermione forestalled his attempts at intimacy.

She had told him she thought he was mental to keep trying to get their snogging to the level of passion where he got upset when it didn't go any further. Ron had looked at her like she was bloody insane and told her in a very strained voice (while remembering the two-week period of near celibacy when he'd called her a tease) that of course he wanted it to go as far as it could, even if he got mad and even if it couldn't go all the way. She had looked at him like he was insane too, but had seemed to understand something at that point.

From then on, she never directly contradicted his attempts. Instead, she would subtly redirect them and disarm him. She would joke with him, or suddenly tickle him, or ask him a very off-topic, but serious relationship question that would make any further advances by him seem absolutely obtuse. She would always try to do something to calm things down without it being a direct and total denial. It worked, blast her, but he still got a bit annoyed when he thought about being manipulated like he was an idiot. Of course, at the time she was redirecting him, he usually wasn't thinking with all of his brain power, and he was usually trying to sweet talk her, so he was an idiot.

Bloody mental, demented, infuriating, wonderful, beautiful, befuddling, bloody Hermione.

Ron stood up, hitched up his pajama pants a little higher and walked to the window. He stared out over the moonlit street outside of Grimauld place. He would always be thankful to Harry for giving him the use of this place while he was laid up in hospital. It was still a dank and scary old house, but it certainly would always have a special meaning to him now.

As he stared at the deserted street, he wondered again if he was more of a man now than before. He didn't think so.

He thought that he had acquitted himself well for his first time. He had not lasted too short a time, of which he was ridiculously proud. So he thought he had made love like a man and not an overeager boy. Of course, he had nothing to compare it to, so he couldn't really tell. He ran his hand sheepishly through his hair at the thought.

But as for being a man, Hermione had taught him that he was a man before she had given herself to him. He felt like a man when she needed him in ways other than for physical love. Like when he opened a tightly sealed jar for him, or when she grabbed his arm when she heard a scary noise in this old house. Indeed, he had never felt more like a man than when she had clutched him and wept at Dumbledore's funeral.

On the other hand, earlier tonight there had been moments after the initial pain she had felt as they began to make love. There had been moments when her limbs had gone from frightened stiffness to delicious suppleness. Her breathing had stopped coming in short tense gasps and suddenly began to come in excited inhalations. Then Hermione's fingers had dug into him, not in expectation of pain, but in expectation of pleasure. Ron could tell that Hermione was no longer hurting, but was beginning to earnestly enjoy herself.

At that moment, Ron had known he was a man like at none other in his life.

As Ron remembered, he grimaced to himself embarrassedly. Unfortunately, he had gotten a little too excited by Hermione's sudden enthusiastic behavior at that point, and the whole affair had very quickly come to a wonderful, if slightly unfulfilled, conclusion.

But he would make it up to her. He would spend years making it up to her. He would learn and get better as would she. And Ron silently promised himself that he would make sure that she always felt the pleasure that she had only just begun to experience that night.

Regardless, the best part had been afterwards. They had laid in each others arms and talked and joked and teased and (not surprisingly) argued; but jokingly and only just a little bit. They talked about how they couldn't wait to see Harry up and about again, and how they hoped he and Ginny could work out their affair.

They had laid there for hours just talking and laughing about when they met, and when they realized they had begun to like each other. They talked about the first time Ron noticed Hermione was a girl and about how they had been so stupid to ever be jealous and to waste any time they could have had together. They talked about their first kiss at Bill's wedding. They talked about that night before the last battle with Voldemort, when Ron had told Hermione that he loved her, and she had thrown herself into his arms and told him she loved him too. They talked about their future and their plans and told each other that no matter what, they would be together.

He felt tightness in the back of his throat, and he didn't know if it was a prelude to tears or a giddy laugh. It had been amazing. She was amazing. And he was her man.  
He loved her. That was for sure.

Ron heard the creek of a floorboard behind him and felt slender arms slide around his waist. He felt the tickle of Hermione's unruly hair on the nape of his neck as she leaned into him, pressing her cheek against his bare back.

After a few minutes standing thus, he turned slowly and enfolded her in his arms. He marveled at how her slender form fit so perfectly within the circle of his embrace. She wore only his Chudly Cannons tee shirt, and he felt a stir of renewed interest as her body pressed against him as he held her.

He bent and kissed her tenderly. She smiled as he pulled back from her and then let out a little sigh as she opened her eyes. There was a sultry quality to her shadowed face that he had never seen before. He felt her fingers entwine his, and then she was gently leading him back to bed. 


End file.
